Criminal Conversations: Victorian Crimes, Social Panic, and Moral OutrageJudith Rowbotham, Kim Stevenson In the climate of social panics that characterized so much of the Victorian period, there was keen consciousness of the threats a variety of crimes posed to social stability. Conversations about crime, particularly via the media, were a major feature of Victorian Britain's daily life, and it was through such conversations that people learned about the nature of crime and criminality, as well as about the individuals who committed crimes or were merely guilty of socially offensive conduct or "bad" behavior. The essays in this book set out to explore the ways in which Victorians used newspapers to identify the causes of bad behavior and its impacts, and the ways in which they tried to "distance" criminals and those guilty of "bad" behavior from the ordinary members of society, including identification of them as different according to race or sexual orientation. It also explores how threats from within "normal" society were depicted and the panic that issues like "baby-farming" caused. Victorian alarm was about crimes and bad behavior which they saw as new or unique to their period-but which were not new then and which, in slightly different dress, are still causing panic today. What is striking about the essays in this collection are the ways they echo contemporary concerns about crime and bad behavior, including panics about "new" types of crime. This has implications for modern understandings of how society needs to understand crime, demonstrating that while there are changes over time, there are also important continuities. Judith Rowbotham is senior lecturer in history, Nottingham Trent University. Kim Stevenson is senior lecturer in law at the University of Plymouth. Rowbotham and Stevenson are founders and directors of SOLON: Promoting Interdisciplinary Studies in Bad Behavior and Crime. |
Contents
IDENTIFYING THE CAUSES AND IMPACTS | 1 |
The Press and the Public Visibility of NineteenthCentury | 23 |
Religion Rural Society and Moral Panic | 40 |
The Scandalous Implications | 55 |
Debating the Boundless Region of Dishonesty | 70 |
EXTERNAL THREATS TO THE SECURITY OF SOCIETY | 89 |
Roger Swift | 106 |
The Medicalization of Male | 126 |
THE THREAT FROM WITHIN | 179 |
BabyDroppers BabySweaters and BabyFarmers | 198 |
Debating Clarence | 215 |
Victorian Encryptions | 232 |
Kicked Beaten Jumped On until They Are Crushed | 247 |
Epilogue | 267 |
Appendix | 273 |
301 | |
Other editions - View all
Criminal Conversations: Victorian Crimes, Social Panic, & Moral Judith Rowbotham No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
adulteration Aggravated Assaults argued Ashwell August baby-farming bad behavior Britain British British Medical Journal chapter charged child Clarence committed Commons Select Committee consent contemporary convicted court criminal conversation Daily Telegraph dangerous classes debate discourse domestic East Riding England English evidence example farm servants farm service fear female fraud Gender guilty harm Harriet hiring fairs History homosexuality husband Ibid identified Illustrated Police involved Irish James Fitzjames Stephen January Journal judges Judith Rowbotham jury Justice juvenile crime Kim Stevenson larceny limited liability London magistrates male Manchester Mayhew mid-Victorian missionary moral outrage moral panic murder newspapers Nineteenth Century Novelli offense Old Bailey Overend Gurney Pall Mall Gazette person popular practice prisoner prosecution prostitutes punishment reported respectable sentence sexology sexual social panic society sodomy Stephen stereotypes Taylor Thomas Thomas Ashwell threat tion trial University Press venereology Victorian violence wife woman women Yorkshire
References to this book
Heretical Hellenism: Women Writers, Ancient Greece, and the Victorian ... Shanyn Fiske Limited preview - 2008 |